The Charleston Shooting Is A Terrorist Act & A Hate Crime

The horrible shooting in Charleston has the right-wing in this country in a quandary. They are bending over backwards to avoid calling this a racial hate crime or a terrorist act. Rick Perry said it was an "accident" caused by drugs. Fox News and Rick Santorum as it was a blow against "religious freedom". Others want to label it as just the act of a mentally ill person. All of that is a load of crap.

It is obvious to anyone who looks at the facts that this was a hate crime. The perpetrator has a history of racism, and he admitted he was targeting African-Americans in the hope of creating a race war in this country. What more proof is needed to consider this a hate crime?

But it is not just murder, and it is not just a hate crime. It was also an act of terrorism. I know the right-wing wants to save the word terrorism for violent acts committed by a follower of islam, but that is not the common definition of terrorism. That is just their private definition to keep from having to address their right-wing and racist brothers who engage in terrorist acts. Consider the following definitions of terrorism:

In 2004, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1566 condemned terrorist acts as:

"criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act, which constitute offences within the scope of and as defined in the international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism, are under no circumstances justifiable by considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar nature."

 U.S. Code of Federal Regulations

The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations defines terrorism as "the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives" (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85).

Does Dylan Roof's violent action fit those definitions? Of course it does. He killed nine innocent people to further his own desire for a race war. How can that not be terrorism?

I understand the right's reluctance to label this horrific crime as either a hate crime or terrorism. They know that most of these creeps like Roof reside within their own ranks -- and they don't want to be tarred with that same brush (even though many of them probably deserve it for supporting and/or being apologists for the racists and bigots within the right-wing).

It's also time to recognize that this country has a problem with white, home-grown, christian terrorists. And that problem is more severe and more dangerous than that posed by muslim fanatics. Here is a list of the 10 most famous terrorist acts committed by home-grown, white, christian men. You can go to Raw Story for an in depth discussion of each of these acts.

1. Wisconsin Sikh Temple massacre, Aug. 5, 2012. 
2. The murder of Dr. George Tiller, May 31, 2009.
3. Knoxville Unitarian Universalist Church shooting, July 27, 2008.
4. The murder of Dr. John Britton, July 29, 1994. 
5. The Centennial Olympic Park bombing, July 27, 1996.
6. The murder of Barnett Slepian by James Charles Kopp, Oct. 23, 1998.
7. Planned Parenthood bombing, Brookline, Massachusetts, 1994.
8. Suicide attack on IRS building in Austin, Texas, Feb. 18, 2010.
9. The murder of Alan Berg, June 18, 1984. 
10. Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing, April 19, 1995.